Speciality Food April 2025

6 supermarkets were found to feature pictures of healthy animals outdoors on their corporate websites. Also covered in the investigation were 30 random episodes of animal farming programmes across five UK channels – BBC1, BBC2, CBEEBIES, ITV and Channel 4. While all showed animals both outside and indoors, the indoor conditions were high welfare, without the standard treatment experienced on industrial farms. The Foundation identified major UK retailers are making ‘British made’ claims to market meat and fish products largely made outside of Britain too. Edie Bowles, executive director of The Animal Law Foundation, said, “Studies show just howmuch consumers care about animal welfare and make purchasing decisions accordingly and the law protects consumers from buying products based on misleading information. However, something has clearly gone Examples include misleading portrayals of animal farming on major supermarket and food producer websites, exaggerated claims of animal products being British, and the use of fake farm names by large retailers. The report claims that despite 85% of animals in the UK being reared at factory farms, this is not what the public is being widely shown. During The Animal Law Foundation’s investigation it reviewed the websites, adverts and products of 47 producers and processors of dairy, eggs, chickens, ducks, pigs, turkeys and lambs. Just three producers didn’t feature animal imagery on their websites or products, and of the 44 that used images, 84.09% showed livestock living outdoors. While 61.36% also showed animals housed indoors, all of the animals appeared healthy, 29.63% showed spacious conditions, and 48.15% used blurry, cropped or unclear imagery. All major Charity says consumers are being misled over animal farming The Animal Law Foundation has revealed in its latest report, Food ChainMisinformation, that pervasive misinformation in the food supply chain is impacting public perceptions of animal farming and illegally impacting consumer decisions I 've done this now for just over 20 years. I started when I was 19, having grown up much further north at the top of Scotland, and originally was quite keen to become a producer. When I connected with other producers, I found that they were of the opinion that distribution was the problem – there were a lot of good products out there, but they couldn’t get them to retail – so they asked me to do some sales and delivery work for them. This was at a time that farm shops were taking off, so it was a case of being in the right place at the right time. The scale of the work we do at Cress Co is much larger these days, but the philosophy remains the same – maintaining connections with people, and that we’re doing our best work when nobody really notices that we’re doing our job seamlessly. We should be the connection between the supplier and the customer that takes a bit of hassle out of the process and smooths the transition. We provide delivery, warehousing, invoicing and order capture – including a lot of the dirtier jobs, which we’ve kept in-house, things you probably don’t notice until they don’t work, and by doing them well we hope we add value to the process. The reason I love the fine food industry so much is that we’re dealing with people, but frommy point of JOE WALL CRESS CO “It’s the people that matter” view, if the transaction goes wrong it doesn’t matter what else you are doing – you have to get that right, so we work really hard to make that as good as it can be. Having said that, I still speak to some of my first customers, and we try to keep the same drivers on the same runs and account managers on the same accounts. That way, if a transaction breaks down or there’s a problem, customers don’t mind so much – it becomes about how you fix the situation and look after your connection. It’s important for our customers to know that our door is always open – there is always a person on the end of the phone, whether that be your driver or account manager – because happy customers are the most important metric we work to. You can measure the cost of failed deliveries, profit per invoice, all these things that accountants love, but it’s the people that really matter in the fine food sector. Often issues stem from poor communication, so that’s something we continually work on; we’re not just dealing with contracts and tenders like elsewhere in the industry. We’re all connected; suppliers speak to each other, customers speak to each other – it's very interlinked, and it’s important for wholesalers to carefully consider where they sit in the equation. For example, due to our size we can’t be as nimble as we might like to be, so when it comes to trends we might need to direct customers to work with suppliers directly. Ultimately, though, we exist to make the process run smoother for the rest of the sector; we’re not driven by turning a profit and would never choose cost over consumer – everything we do has to be a win across the board. wrong where 100% of supermarkets show images of healthy animals outside, yet in reality 85% are kept on factory farms.” Bowles added, “Just as regulators are cracking down on greenwashing, we need urgent action to address ‘humane-washing’ in animal agriculture. Consumers must be able to trust the claims made on the food they buy, and authorities must ensure that those who partake in misleading practices are held to account.” The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 Act, due to come into force in April 2025, prohibits unfair commercial practices, which is where a practice that is likely to cause the average consumer to take a transactional decision that they would not have taken otherwise, as a result of a misleading action or omission, which can include false or misleading information. The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 are currently in force and are largely the same regarding this prohibition. It’s hoped the new act will be used to prevent misleading advertising claims within the food and drink industry in future. be is collected for recycling in every region. Businesses in England withmore than 10 employees should have adopted Simpler Recycling on 31st March, while those with fewer than 10 full-time employees are exempt until 31st March, 2027. The rules apply regardless of howmany employees are on-site at once. For example, if you have two locations with five full-time members of staff at each, you must still comply. If you haven’t already acted, now’s Simpler Recycling, Defra’s new scheme regulating recycling and waste in Britain has just come into force, aiming to make collecting and processing waste more streamlined. Under the new rules, as standard most households and workplaces will have four containers for non- recyclable waste, food/garden waste, paper and card, and other dry, recyclable materials such as plastic, metal and glass. This universal standard has been set to ensure everything that can Defra's new UK recycling model enforced The Soil Association’s chief executive, Helen Browning, said, “This damaging move by Government seriously risks the viability of the organic sector and threatens the supply of sustainable British food. It has frozen farmers out of the opportunity to meet the rising demand for organic food, which will instead continue to be met by imports. The Government is disregarding what shoppers and farmers want, alongside the need to protect nature. “We are also very worried that smaller producers and family farms, particularly fruit and veg growers, have not had enough opportunity to access the scheme and that they will be most impacted by this sudden change.” The Soil Association has slammed the Government’s decision to halt Sustainable Farming Incentives (SFIs). The announcement was made just weeks after farmers wanting to convert to organic practices should use options within the new SFIs. But now these options have been frozen, with no assurances for the future of sustainable farming available. In the wake of the move, the Soil Association is calling for payments for organic conversion and maintenance to be retained, farmers who started but who had not finished their SFI applications to have those honoured, priority to be given to smaller producers, and payments for agroforestry, to be retained. the time to take action. While details aren’t available yet, Defra will likely begin issuing fines for those not complying with the reforms. The first step for a breach will be a compliance notice from the Environment Agency, and beyond this, further sanctions could be enacted. Mark Hall, waste management expert at businesswaste.co.uk, said, “While we would never advise businesses to ignore important rule changes like this, we can understand why many are frustrated. Communication from the Government has been very poor, withmany businesses unaware the changes were even taking place. It’s fallen on waste management companies like ourselves to reach out to customers to ensure they don’t fall foul of regulations.” Mark adds that he’s hearing from businesses still in the dark about how the rules work, who they apply to, and what potential penalties will be. “The generic nature of the guidance has left many questioning what changes they need to make. For example, do all offices with 10 or more employees now need to instruct workers to take home food waste to avoid adding collection fees? While the new rules will bring undeniable environmental benefits, many businesses feel they are the latest in a line of measures which will only increase operating costs.” Visit the Defra website for the latest information on Simpler Recycling. Studies show just howmuch consimers care about animal welfare andmake purchasing decisions accordingly We’re not driven by turning a profit and would never choose cost over consumer – everything we do has to be a win across the board @specialityfood SFI decision causes concern in farming